This is a five-year longitudinal study of the impact of the Target Oriented Curriculum (TOC): a top-down, state mandated reform, on teachers' professional development. By taking a perspective that focuses on teachers' learning during the reform process, it allows the reform, the context and the interaction between them to be taken into consideration. The study focuses on two interrelated areas of inquiry; namely, understanding how the TOC affected teachers' professional development and the conditions which seemed to explain why this occurred. Given the nature of the research questions, a case study approach was used, and the main data collection method was by individual Interviews. Other methods - like direct observation and document review - were used for triangulation purposes. Starting with a large database, the study then focuses on one school P.C. Memorial Primary School and two teachers in the school - Mary and Shirley. The study goes beyond just describing teachers' state/level of professionalism and analyses how change occurs.
Contrary to the proposition that such educational reforms serve to diminish the professional autonomy and compromise the ideology of teachers, the findings of this study suggests that the TOC, despite its well documented deficiencies, served as a source of critical events which both provided authentic learning situations and promoted reflection for some teachers. It also provided conditions which served to facilitate reframing and professional development for some teachers.
What happened in P.C. Memorial Primary School shows that the success or failure of a reform effort is a relative matter. It depends on what was in focus and considered to be important. Also the response of individual teachers to the same conditions differed very markedly. This is exemplified by the different opportunities to learn created for the two teachers in the same school, which accounted for their different paths of professional development.

Over the last decade, educational reformers in Hong Kong have targeted teacher development and learning as a key area of need. As part of this movement, different external change agencies began developing partnerships with school as attempts to enhance the quality of teacher professional development. Such partnerships have operated for a number of years, but, to date, their efficacy has been largely unexplored. This research, taking teachers' implementation of project learning as an example, aims to explore the impact of teacher-change agency partnerships on teacher learning. The study is important in helping educators to better understand the difficulties teachers face when engaging in changes and also teachers' learning need. This research also reveals the effects of teacher-change agency partnership and its impact on teacher learning. This study can shed lights on ways of curriculum change and teacher development.
The research posed four questions: (1) What difficulties do teachers face while carrying out project learning in school? (2) What kind of learning did teachers experience while involved in the teacher-change agency partnership? (3) Within the context of educational change, did teacher-change agency partnerships have an impact on teacher learning? (4) What do teacher-change agencies need to consider if partnership is to achieve positive results?
Five experienced primary school teachers were involved in the study. In-depth interviews and non-participatory observation were used to collect data. Based on thick description of five cases individually and a comprehensive comparison among them, the research revealed: (1) Teacher trainers need to take a multi-dimensional view to study the difficulties teachers encountered in implementing reform initiatives; (2) Teacher learning should take account of both "teacher" and "learning". The research highlighted that teacher professional development and personal growth are closely interrelated; (3) In different

This research explored student teacher's thinking in science and how they oriented to professional development from pre-service teacher education to beginning teaching. A more holistic view of teacher thinking with four focuses was embedded in this research: (1) conceptions of teaching and learning science; (2) planning; (3) teaching; and (4) reflections. The characteristics of these four aspects and their changes across time, the interrelationships of the four aspects and the change of their coherence in the longitudinal study were the main focus of the study.
An original group of 25 student teachers in Hong Kong were followed for three years, which included their two-year Certificate in Primary Education (Chinese) (Full-Time) Courses (1996-98) at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and their first year of beginning teaching in local primary schools in 1998-99. The student teachers were interviewed about their conception of teaching and learning science and what they had extracted from the experience. Also, they were asked to draw concepts maps to describe their thoughts during planning and were observed in their micro-teaching, school teaching experience and beginning teaching in local classrooms. After each of on these observations, they wrote journals to reflect on their teaching. The research approach involved in-depth qualitative analyses supplemented by quantification when necessary to allow clearer assessment of change in thinking.
In this longitudinal study, student teachers were found to espouse predominant or secondary constructivist conceptions of teaching and learning science to different degrees in different stages of study. Their planning became less intense in terms of lower complexity and fewer thoughts. Besides, teachers' development of constructivist teaching was evident and there was continuing evidence of confronting reflection among teachers throughout the three stages of the study.
An increase in the coherence between the different

Teaching is divided on emphasis on teachers' creativity or students' creativity, on novelty or on appropriateness or usefulness. The emphasis shifts from teachers' creativity to students' creativity after training and their views on creative teaching were more comprehensive. Five categories of conceptions of creative teaching were revealed: daily creative teaching, creative adaptive teaching, creative innovative teaching, teaching for creativity and creative interactive teaching.
Data on student teachers' teaching performance indicated that most of the student teachers possess the attributes and attitudes necessary for implementing creative teaching. However, such creative teaching was obstructed by the influence of traditional methods of Chinese language teaching, textbooks and the school environment. Most of the student teachers could only exhibit "playfulness", a characteristic of creative teaching, in their teaching. Their performance improved in the second semester and more characteristics of creative teaching were found, especially on students' creativity.
Analysis of the overall performance of the best three student teachers found that all manifested a more comprehensive view of creative teaching. They were able to balance different aspects and different elements of creative teaching. Last but not least, they demonstrated "teaching flexibility" which enabled them to adapt or integrate existing teaching methods flexibly and thus to enhance creativity in both teacher and student.
The contribution of this study lies partly in the overview that it provides on creative teaching. It clarifies key concepts of creative teaching and shows directions for future development. In terms of implementation, the research identifies critical features of creative teaching and key elements that affect learning outcomes. It provides teachers with concrete principles to implement creative teaching. The result of the study have implications for the design of initial teacher

This study explores the changes in the conceptions of pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986'0) of student teachers during training. The focus of geographical education in Hong Kong is shifting from imparting knowledge to developing skills of geographical enquiry, requiring geography teachers to rethink their pedagogical content knowledge to reflect this change of emphasis. This poses a particular problem for student teachers with limited understanding of what is involved. In the transition from training to full time teaching, geography student teachers undergo and must undergo changes in their individual understanding about planning and conducting lessons.
The aims of this study were: (I) to explore the pattern and variations of student teachers' conceptions of pedagogical content knowledge for teaching secondary school geography; (2) to identify the factors influencing thinking and changes in conceptions; and (3) to develop a schema to synthesise the development of their geographical pedagogical content knowledge. A qualitative-interpretive research approach, adopting a phenomenographic perspective, was used. The data came from recursive, in-depth interviews with three student teachers conducted at various points during the two years of their training.
The study demonstrated that the conceptions of the student teachers shifted in varying ways and to varying degrees during training, as their pedagogical content knowledge grew. Conceptions of pedagogical content knowledge were viewed in terms of teachers' use of concepts to explain phenomena, their choice of teaching methods in relation to pupils and images of teaching. The three teachers exhibited seven conceptions of pedagogical content knowledge, ranging from the simple transmission of text to the development of structured ideas appropriate to pupil understanding, and the integration of content and method. Their conceptions were influenced by a number of factors, including their own past learning,

For data collection, the researcher was attached to three Hong Kong secondary schools with average academic and extra-curricular activity performances for three months each during the past two years. Having got familiarized with the teachers and students through joining various formal and informal school activities, in the last month of his attachment, the researcher invited each teacher to be interviewed on the topic of extra-curricular activities and to be tape-recorded. In the end, 122 teachers agreed to be the participants in the interviews. The interview was conducted in a semi-structured way, in which the teacher first recounted and commented on his/her experience and impression of extra-curricular activities. The researcher then asked for clarifications and further exploration of his/her own conception, with the help of some "situation cards". In the whole interview process, the researcher adopted a "non judgmental" attitude towards the definition of "extra-curricular activities", only asking the interviewee questions on the clarity and consistency of his/her conception. Each interview lasted for about an hour. After the interviews, the recordings were converted into written scripts. Based on the interview process and scripts, the researcher sorted out various main themes and key words and proceeded with data analysis. After three stages of back-and-forth collation and with the number of cases reduced to forty, finally seven conceptions of extra-curricular activities have been constructed: Accountability, Attachment, Mould, Experience, Personal growth, Liberation, and Balance. The researcher has depicted the specific horizon, concepts and the relationship among concepts, and also compared and contrasted the distinctive features of each conception.
There are multifarious extra-curricular activities in Hong Kong secondary schools. Nearly every teacher participates in the activities. Different teachers infuse extra-curricular activities with diverse meanings

This is a research about the life stories of Hong Kong secondary school teachers. It explores on the process of how these teachers implement their humanistic education beliefs and manifest their humanistic personal qualities, so as to achieve positive education results.
This research adopts the life history research method and focuses on the interviews of five humanistic teachers in Hong Kong secondary schools. Data from the interviews is analyzed by using the categorical-content approach. Such data plus the researcher's personal log are crossed with theories on humanistic education. Results are: (1) positive growing up background of the humanistic teachers nurtured their humanistic beliefs; (2) the humanistic teachers establish a teacher-student relationship full of genuineness, empathy and respect---when adding up equals to love, and such relationship facilitates the growth of their students; (3) the humanistic teachers do experience struggle in their career paths and they have to adjust for the incongruence between ideals and reality, but their greatest contentment is still the growth of their students.
The major finding of this research is that during the manifestation of humanistic beliefs of these Hong Kong secondary school teachers, a theory of "A Touch of Love Lights up a Life" is established---both the students and even their teachers themselves experience the lighting up of their inner energy and grow as a result if they are touched by the elements of love such as genuineness, empathy and respect in their life circumstances. Such growth-facilitating processes that happen in the education setting are highlighted.
This research also discusses the implication of its findings on education reform movements on-going in Hong Kong. Furthermore, directions for future research on the manifestation of humanistic education beliefs in Hong Kong are suggested.

Mentoring has been seen as an ongoing effort to professionalize teaching in teacher education since the 1980s. It is commonly believed that collaborating mentors and student teachers can benefit through the dynamics of school-based mentoring. Reflectivity is said to be one mechanism by which changes occur both in the student teacher and the mentor.
Conventional studies on the reciprocal effects of mentoring on mentors have usually used survey and follow-up interviews, after mentors have completed the mentoring process, as the main methods of data collection. Hence, there is scant literature about how mentors' professional growth develops during mentoring and what factors sustain or hinder such development. The present study aims to investigate the effect of mentoring on mentors' development of expertise in teaching.
Ethnographic research methods incorporating direct observation and interviews were employed in studying four mentors' mentoring practices. These mentors are English and Chinese language teachers who acted as mentors in 2005 for Year 4 students of the Bachelor of Education programme at The University of Hong Kong. An analytical framework developed from the literature is used to interpret and illustrate the effects of mentoring practices on their development of expertise in teaching, in terms of reflection, practical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.
The results indicate that student teachers' practices in learning to teach become an object about which mentors engage in reflection. Reflection through conversations plays a key role in experienced teachers' development of expertise in teaching. Such reflection requires three kinds of capacities: theorizing practical knowledge, pedagogical reasoning and collaborative inquiry.
Relationships that are reflective and collaborative, involving co-inquiry about teaching and learning, have been found to be pivotal in mentors' development of expertise in teaching. This study demonstrates